Prelude to Lothering

IMPORTANT NOTE 1

To side-step any potential confusion that is inherent of player-created character names, we will be referring to the main character as Hawke who, for our purposes, is also female.

IMPORTANT NOTE 2

Also note that due to the nature of the game's diverging paths your actual gameplay experience may differ slightly or even majorly from what is described here. The guide strives to delineate major branches or alternate paths in the storyline before they happen, but it's possible certain events may slip under the author's nose.

Prologue

It is handy to play up to the point of Kirkwall with all three classes in three different saves. This way when you can decide what class you want to play with, knowing what suits you best.

Dragon Age II jolts you into action immediately after selecting your character class, and you find Hawke already poised to take on an incoming group of Darkspawn called Hurlocks. If you're unfamiliar with the game's mechanics, we invite you to peruse our Basics section to help you get comfortable with battle. Otherwise, there are helpful on-screen tips as well.

Hawke already owns a rather fluent stock of abilities that can be put to good use almost immediately, though you won't have them for very long. Unfortunately, the game plans to strip these away from Hawke as soon as this beginning sequence ends. These powerful abilities derive from class-unique disciplines that are split into six ability trees. The present time is as good as any to be able to test drive these abilities to find the ones you like most. The ability tree will be made available to you as soon as Hawke sees a level-up. For now, just have fun with the abilities for now and let the near-future you figure it out.

Clear out the Darkspawn with the help of your companion. The groups of Darkspawn are just small fry compared to the giant Ogre that's about to come your way. While the Ogre presents a daunting challenge at first glance, Hawke's much smaller and nimble body can easily dance circles around this cumbersome brute. All the same, Darkspawn cluster around the large beast in an attempt to overwhelm you, but play it safe by picking off nearby Darkspawn and attack the Ogre when it's not hurtling its powerful arms toward you. The Mage class would have a much easier time dealing with the Ogre from a distance. It's not necessary to fully reduce its health to zero since a cinematic takes over before that happens.

Following this prologue, you move onto part two of the character creation process, in which you can tweak Hawke's visage and various facial features, think of a clever name, and choose Hawke's backstory. Speaking of the backstory, you can choose among a few preset backgrounds, each corresponding to a position on the moral pendulum, but if you've played (but not necessarily beaten) Origins you can import that save file as another option.

Is That Your Final Answer?

Note that once you exit this screen, all the changes you've made to your character thus far become permanent. (If you have access to The Black Emporium DLC, though, you can revisit this character customization screen.)